Ubisoft Connect Launcher Is Being Removed From Steam, Starting With Prince of Persia

Ubisoft has started stripping the Ubisoft Connect launcher requirement out of its Steam games, and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is the first one to lose it. Owners of the $29.99 Metroidvania were told through an announcement inside their Steam library that the game now talks to Ubisoft's servers through a backend component called Ubisoft Connect Services, so the separate launcher no longer has to be installed or running in the background to play.

This is a Steam-side change only. The PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and Amazon Luna versions of The Lost Crown are unaffected, and the game on the Epic Games Store and Ubisoft's own storefront still works the way it always did. There was no press release. The notice went out only to people who own the game on Steam, and Ubisoft described it as an initial step toward a smoother launch experience on the platform, with more iteration to come.

What changes when the Ubisoft Connect launcher goes

The practical difference is one fewer program. Until now, pressing Play on The Lost Crown in Steam handed you off to Ubisoft Connect, which had to sign in before the game would start. That handoff is gone. Ubisoft Connect Services runs as a background component tied to the game rather than as a client you can see, and the studio says the features that lived in the launcher continue to work through it.

• Cross-progression between platforms is retained.
• In-game challenges and Ubisoft's rewards system are retained.
• The standalone Ubisoft Connect client no longer needs to be installed to play.
• You still link a Ubisoft account to your Steam account once, and that link is what those features run on.

So the account requirement has not disappeared, only the client. That distinction matters, because the usual complaint about Ubisoft on Steam is two separate sign-ins and a second window, not the existence of an account.

Which Ubisoft games could be next

Ubisoft has not published a list or a timeline. Its message described the rollout as progressive and said more games would follow, without naming any. Published reports have pointed to Assassin's Creed, Rainbow Six Siege, The Division 2 and Far Cry as the likeliest candidates, but treat that as informed speculation rather than a commitment. Nothing beyond The Lost Crown has been confirmed.

There is a partial precedent. Assassin's Creed Shadows shipped in 2025 without needing the standalone launcher on Steam, so the idea is not new. What is new here is a game that has already been out for two years being converted after the fact, which is the harder half of the problem.

Steam's own store pages give a rough hint at where things stand, though the wording is not consistent enough to treat as a checklist. The Lost Crown's third-party account notice now reads "Ubisoft Account", while Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin's Creed Mirage still list the Ubisoft Connect launcher outright. Other Ubisoft listings use a mix of phrasings that predate all of this.

What Ubisoft has not removed

Denuvo Anti-Tamper is still listed on The Lost Crown's Steam page, and nothing about this change touches it. Losing the launcher is a convenience fix, not a DRM rollback, and anyone hoping the two go together will be disappointed. The game also remains online-linked for the cross-progression and rewards features even though the campaign itself is single-player.

Ubisoft has been unpicking its PC and console friction in several places at once lately. Its back catalogue recently turned up in Xbox's Disc to Digital programme, covering Far Cry and Assassin's Creed, and its live-service titles have had a noisier few weeks, from Rainbow Six Siege's Operation Split Fire season update to The Division 2's three-hour server outage for Update 2.36.

Why the Ubisoft Connect launcher change matters on Steam Deck

Handhelds are where a second launcher hurts most. The Lost Crown is Steam Deck Verified, and a game that boots straight from the Steam library rather than routing through a desktop-style client is easier to use with a controller and quicker to resume. It is also the opposite direction to what some publishers have done recently, including For Honor cutting off Steam Deck and Linux players for ranked play.

If you play Ubisoft games away from a PC entirely, the launcher question never applied to you in the first place, and Android players chasing PC titles have their own route through Winlator and similar compatibility layers. For everyone else on Steam, this is one small window that stopped opening.